Sandboxing - story before, story now, story after
James_Nostack:
This conversation is getting big and complicated, but unfortunately I'm at job-related training classes all day today and tomorrow, and then traveling overseas without reliable internet access. So my involvement is going to be really spotty, and maybe I'll have to shelve I really want to address C. Edwards's topics, because they begin to get into the heart of what I want to talk about, regarding Story When.
For anyone who hasn't spent a huge amount of time on the Forge, one of the site's big contributions to RPG discussion is that sometimes when people sit down at a role-playing game, they want to "say something" about Life, the Universe, and Everything. The game is entertaining in part because it's wrestling with Big Issues. So in a game of Dogs in the Vineyard, in which you play a fundamentalist teenage virgin Mormon gunslinger, the process of play is going to involve thinking about the intersection of religious dogma and justice (among other things). In Sorcerer, in which you play a modern-day Faust, the process of play will involve thinking about whether and how the ends justify the means. Under this style of play, it's not enough to touch on these topics. The players have to be empowered to handle these issues in their own ways--players' choices, in interaction with the GM and the rules of the game, will lead to unique outcomes personal to those involved. Addressing these issues, sometimes referred to as addressing "premise," from a position of player-empowerment is sometimes called Narrativism or Story Now.
(I'm writing this in the middle of a training class, so I'm likely getting a few details wrong in this presentation. I trust Forge diehards will correct my errors.)
Are there Big Issues in Dungeons & Dragons?
Sometimes! Here I'm talking about D&D, and not talking about sandboxes outside of that tradition.
How far will you go to help a friend down on his luck? (We will go to another dimension, lose a bunch of magical items, and undergo personal growth to save your sorry ass. But only if you're a high-level Magic-User. I don't think we even noticed when the Thief-Acrobat died.)Will your addiction overwhelm bonds of friendship? (Forget about the Thief picking the pockets of her party members: Patriarch Zekon is a friend, but he is also rich as hell. There has always been this temptation to skrag him, which we have resisted. This ties into Law, Neutrality, and Chaos.)What are you willing to risk your life to defend? (In an early Glantri game, my 1-hit-point Magic-User had a clear opportunity to run away from a fight--but I just couldn't bring myself to leave my pet mule to die. I had to protect it, even if it would lead to my death. And it did.)How do you treat powerless people who have something you want? (The Glantri and White Box crews have solved this in different ways, at some point leading to intra-party conflict.)When you finally get big and powerful, what will you do with that authority and responsibility? (My guy, who I always envisioned as a pacifist doofus, has retired rather than become corrupted by using his magic to wound others.)There are probably other things going on too, but these leap to mind. None of them are the primary purpose of play, at least not for me; they're issues that periodically arise in the process of overcoming tremendous challenges in the service of our drug-addiction to gold. But these are genuine big issues endemic to the Murder-Hobo Heist Movie genre, and we're empowered to handle them in play pretty much however we see fit, recognizing the world / NPC's might push back on some outcomes.
My interpretation is that we're doing a hell of a lot of "Gamist" play, where the focus to see who's the best player (both vis-a-vis the GM, and unofficially within the party), but with a discrete, subordinate bunch of "Narrativist" issues, where we're curious to measure how big a bunch of assholes we are. Sometimes we're good people who resist temptation; sometimes we're idiots who should have taken that gullible mark; sometimes we're bastards who deserve what we get, and every now and then we're successful, cynical scofflaws. (Analogy to the Big Four Outcomes in Sorcerer.)
Story When?
As I understand it--and it's totally possible I'm wrong--the whole question about Story Before vs. Story Now vs. Story After is, at what point in the process of play do people get to address those big issues? In a Story Before game, the GM resolves all of these big issues prior to play, as part of preparation. Evil will always turn on itself; virtue is its own reward; a Faustian bargain is never worth the cost. That kind of thing, typically with elaborate plots worked out in advance that players move through (sometimes called "illusionism" because the appearance of player choice is illusory). In Story Now, these issues are addressed/resolved through play itself. In Story After, as I've always seen Ron discuss it, the issues and their resolutions only become apparent after play concludes, usually through some degree of historical revisionism.
(Again, full expectation of Forge-heads correcting me on that, which will color what I have to say here.... )
I'm unsure if sandbox play must fit into a single category there. I believe it's compatible with Story Now play, but what about the others?
Story Before - As I see it, a sandbox necessarily involves a large, open macro-structure in which certain situations/scenarios are embedded, with the result that the players set the pace and the GM updates the world. I think all you need is free choice among those menu items. If the GM wants to update the world in lockstep accordance with some pre-established theme I think that could still be a sandbox so long as players have free range of action in other fields of action. Consider a super hero game in which the players, based in Avengers Mansion, can roam around the world taking on their choice of adversary--Doctor Doom, Magneto, the Sub-Mariner, whoever. A fairly common issue in these stories is whether a super villain can be rehabilitated. In this game (let's say Marvel Super Heroes) what the NPC's do between adventures is solely within the GM's discretion, and this GM has decided, "I hate these bleeding heart liberals in the real world, in my game the leopard never changes its spots: villains may pretend to change, but they'll always recidivate." The GM is limiting player freedom by asserting his own authority over the world as it updates, but he's not limiting players' choices within their own field. The GM's not even misrepresenting the campaign world, since these NPC's especially are rather untrustworthy dudes, and the GM could load the deck by only putting untrustworthy super villains on the menu. This may be a field with many hairs to be split!
Story After - This may be more common in sandbox play. Nobody in the White Box game explicitly asked, "How Far Would You Go For Your Friend?" and that issue only became apparent after we'd taken up that plot thread. It's often in the middle of a session where I realize, "Gee, my guy would be really troubled by slaughtering helpless Gnoll children. I'm gonna stop my blood-crazed, bullying warrior friend even if he ends up attacking me." So to that extent, the Big Issues often emerge unexpectedly. But on the other hand, I think many of those issues (loyalty, greed, mercy, etc.) are implicit in the design of Dungeons & Dragons.
(There is one definite degree of historical revisionism in sandbox play: the screwy pacing at the campaign scale, and the degree of randomness in a single session, means that telling a concise story often involves editing things down a lot. One of Tavis's players has been trying to sire an heir for a long time now. We can tell the story of John Fighter wooing the Gynarch of Belltower, and then seducing a Were-Bear, but it isn't tidy because it's spread over bits and pieces of many sessions.)
Again: apologies that I won't be able to participate much for several days.
Ron Edwards:
At the risk of exerting too much moderator privilege, I'm going to provide a couple of clarifiers to a couple of James' points, as he mentioned someone might, and then say, let's relax about posting to this thread until James can get back to it.
New threads are welcome for various sub-issues - it was getting near to the need for that anyway.
Again: I'm not closing this thread and its major questions should continue to be discussed here. But let's merely wait a bit for James to catch up and post regarding all the various outstanding points to date.
Best, Ron
----
OK, now for those clarifiers - there's only one.
James, I think you are missing the point of Story After. Everything you called "Story After" in the above post is still Story Now. Story After is when play does not address Premise, but rather, such content (as well as a great deal of plot continuity and causality, i.e., genuine fictional content) is shoe-horned in outside of play and after it, as an inter-session prep device. Story Now has nothing to do with pre-setting or articulating Premise.
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